


Uncertain Footing

by paintstroke



Series: It's only a weekend away [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Camping, Character Study, Devotion, Feelings, Friendship/Love, M/M, POV Keith (Voltron), POV Second Person, Pining, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Slash, Rock Climbing, UST, offscreen Shiro/Adam implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24656734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintstroke/pseuds/paintstroke
Summary: Shiro takes Keith out for a weekend of rock climbing and camping in the desert. Keith tries to grapple with the way his feelings towards Shiro are changing.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: It's only a weekend away [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799236
Comments: 16
Kudos: 44





	Uncertain Footing

“Adam’s got some marking to do this weekend, so it’ll just be the two of us.”

You look away quickly from your dormitory door before Shiro can catch sight of the happiness that the news brings you. “Alright,” you say, trying to play things cool while your heart races. You can’t look at him. 

The daydreams are just so hard to escape. You’re not sure when Shiro shifted from being an annoyance to a mentor and then to a full-blown crush. Realistically, you know he’s with Adam; you guess he still thinks of you as a kid.

Still, your hopes are tenacious. They’ve rooted deep in the soil of your heart. 

There are times when he treats you like an actual friend. Maybe, just maybe, you can live up to the person that he seems to think you are. You’re starting to stretch in that unfamiliar skin, cautiously testing out the idea of being a person like that. 

You’d do almost anything for Shiro’s approval. 

_‘It’ll just be the two of us._ ’ You delay, making a show out of checking the zippers and straps on your pack.

You swallow hard, hoping that you can push down your feelings along with the lump in your throat. As much as you want to hope that he’s hiding the fact that he feels something for you too, it’s a million times more likely that he’s going to marry Adam. You should just be content to sit in the warm wash of his friendship, because even if by some miracle you manage to live up to his expectations, you’re not going to be who he wants. 

You throw your hiking pack on one shoulder. Even though it’s nearly as large as you are, Shiro knows better than to offer to take it for you. 

“Do you have anything else?” he asks from the door, always ready to help. He tosses his keys, catching them in the same hand as he idles. 

You look around your shared dorm. “Can you grab my goggles?” It was a mental tug-of-war: you hate asking for help, Shiro needs to be useful. You’d actually taken the goggles out of your bag before he got there just to have something. You hit the lights on your way out, glad that when you look down your hair hides your face. 

At his hoverbike, you let him settle your gear with the other camping equipment in the belly of the vehicle. 

You scuff the toes of your second-hand boots against the asphalt of the parking lot. _‘It’ll just be the two of us.’_ “Sure you still want to go?” With anyone else you wouldn’t care. You don’t want to impose on Shiro though. Or maybe that’s dishonest. You just want to hear him say that he wants this too. 

Shiro smiles, and your chest warms, your heart beating faster and you can’t wait for the bike’s engines to kick in and drown it out. 

“Of course,” he says. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Studiously, you etch his words into your mind. Later daydreams will alter them. ‘I’ve been looking forward to spending time with you.’ Small variations. Your hopes live in those spaces.

You eye the bike. “Can I drive?”

Shiro laughs. “Maybe when we’re out of sight of the Garrison,” he winks, and you’re left unable to talk. He shuts the cargo compartment.

Shiro straddles the bike. You wait until he has his balance, then scramble up behind him, feeling awkward and ungainly when you compare your movements to his. 

Like always, you initially grab the supports under your seat, knuckles white around the handles. 

Like always, Shiro says ‘hang on,’ and you take it as permission to wrap your arms around him instead, tucking against his broad back.

Like always, you dream. 

  


* * *

  


You’d left the Garrison immediately after Shiro’s last meeting, but at this time of the year, the sun’s barely still up, hugging the horizon and casting a low, warm glow over everything. 

True to his word, Shiro lets you drive in the middle stretch, on the mostly abandoned roads. He’s studiously careful with his hands, using the passenger grips rather than your hips. He takes over again when you get close to the campground. In a sulky protest, you mimic his posture, sitting slouched backwards, hands on the passenger handles, looking off to the side as he hands over his park pass at the gate. Once inside, he keeps the bike below the speed limits, not allowing the dust to flare up as he guides it towards the campsite you’ve been assigned. 

He unloads the gear and you help, piling the packs beside the bike.

“Do you want to take the bike out again? I can set up camp if you want,” Shiro says, already unzipping the tent’s carry sack. 

You eye the bike, the dusty red still tempting, catching the last dregs of sunlight. To you, the bike has always meant freedom and speed and escape. It’s not nearly as tempting as Shiro’s presence though. Instead you shrug and grab the other set of tent poles. 

You see Shiro smile, which isn’t unusual, and as his smile often does when you’re alone, it inspires a small echo on your own face. You look down at the poles as you snap them together, watching the elastic disappear. You’ve done this before, with Shiro and Adam and Matt and others. But this is the first time it’s been the two of you on your own. 

“Ready?” 

You jerk your head up and shake your bangs out of your eyes. “Yeah.” You jam your corner into the pocket on the fabric of the tent and keep your foot on it as Shiro bends the pole to meet his side.

Beyond a spot for your tent, the campground doesn’t have much. It’s pretty much just a bare plot of dirt with a firepit and a picnic table that’s seen better days, and you love it for its simplicity. 

Here, everything makes sense. 

You don’t talk much as you clip the tent up, working quietly and efficiently opposite Shiro. There’s something in the set of his jaw when he doesn’t think you’re looking that makes you wonder if Adam was really busy with marking, or if they’d been fighting again. 

“Where did you want to climb tomorrow?” you ask when Shiro’s been silent for a little too long. 

Shiro looks over at you. His smile seems easy; but that’s the trouble with trying to read Shiro, he’s put on a confident, happy face for so long that it’s second nature to him. You’re beginning to see that something is really wrong. 

It’s not instantaneous, but your thoughts of what-could-be start to fade with your concern. 

Before you can really register what you’re doing, you’re standing beside Shiro, and you look down at your hand. You reach over to touch his shoulder. You’re absolutely overthinking it, heart hammering as you feel him solid and present beside you. 

He doesn’t flinch away, but he also doesn’t react. A motion that means so much to you is something that he would do unconsciously. Or had done so, so many times, that it was near enough to something instinctive. 

“Lets try for a line on the Pulpit tomorrow,” Shiro says, returning to your question. 

Your heart stumbles in its rapid fire pace. You know that tower. It’s a multipitch that Shiro had suggested a few times in the past, but Adam usually shot down, preferring bouldering or the shorter sport climbing routes. Shiro had once teased Adam that he was afraid of the commitment. The rest of that weekend had been punctuated by dark looks and long silences even you had been aware of. 

“You’re sure?” 

Shiro smiles. His hand covers yours, pressing it into his own shoulder as if confirming it belonged there. “Of course. If you think you’re ready?” His grin is sly, and he tilts his chin. 

Your eyes are wide and your heart is in your throat. You nod. 

You’re ready to meet any challenge he sets.

  


* * *

  


On a folding chair set near the low-burning campfire, you follow Shiro’s lead and cut your hot dogs into spiders, letting the ‘legs’ curl up and blacken as you heat them. 

Shiro keeps his thoughts to himself, and you go along with the quiet. It’s nice to just sit with the crackle of the fire between you. 

The fire burns down to embers, and you start to shiver. You glance over at the pile of wood Shiro had brought out. Shiro catches you looking. “I’m going to head to bed early. You can throw another log on and stay up if you want, but let’s try to get an early start tomorrow.”

You nod, and follow his lead. As much as you like watching the flames, it’s less tempting to stay out in the growing chill alone. You brush your teeth at his side, spitting into the scrubby bushes, rinsing your mouth with water from your scratched-up cherry-red Nalgene. 

You smother the fire. Shiro wanders a little distance away, eyes trained up on the stars. The night’s clear, and getting cold, and you stare after him, before deciding to let him have his space. Whatever’s on his mind, you’ve never really been one to pry. You’ve always appreciated the way that Shiro doesn’t force you to talk when you don’t want to. The least you owe him is the same consideration. 

You crawl into the tent and into your sleeping bag, balling your hoodie into a pillow. Maybe the week of classes was more of a drain than you’d thought, because you fall asleep quickly, only briefly waking when the zipper on the door signals Shiro’s return. 

  


* * *

  


The next morning it’s a short ride out to the base of the rock tower, and a short hike in from where you park. The crack line you’re going to follow is still in the shade, and it’s chilly at the base of the rock tower, despite the threat of heat that sits over the desert.

You’re already tied in to one end of the rope, going through the last of the safety checks before Shiro is ready to lead the first pitch. His gear is racked on loops over his shoulders, and the metal nuts and cams clatter slightly as he moves closer. He’s going to be leading, but he wants to make sure that you’ll find it easy to climb the first pitch after him. 

“Let me see your knot,” Shiro says, and you chafe at his tone. He flips it over in his hand, inspecting how you’ve tied in. Your face heats up with how close it puts his hands to you. You shift back, uncomfortable with the possibility that you’ll react. 

He lets the slack fall, adding it to the rope carefully flaked onto the tarp between you and the wall. 

“Looks good,” he smiles at you, and dumbly, you smile back. You do too. His hair flops endearingly into his eyes, and he pushes it aside absently before he grabs his helmet. You look up at the crack line above you, the flakes of stone. The anticipation is growing. You move closer to Shiro, eying out a few meters of rope between you, enough that’ll get him high enough to place his first piece of gear. You thread the rope through your gri-gri, locking the belay device to your harness. 

Shiro’s attention slips away from you, back towards the rock. “Ready?” he asks, chalking up. 

“Yeah.” 

You tilt your head back, visually tracing the crack as it disappears upwards. Shiro steps closer to the wall. You move in close to spot him for the first few moves, hands up as he picks his way up the rock face with delicate movements. 

Since it’s your first time on a multipitch, he’s chosen an easier one, one that you think you both could climb as a warm-up. He claims there’d be enough of a challenge in the endurance it’ll need. The irritation of that choice had chased after you, in part the result of a disrupted night of sleep on the hard ground and in part the perpetual need to prove that you can do more. The frustration seeps away though, as you concentrate on watching Shiro, on making sure that you’re in a position to protect his head if he slips back. 

He always moves with a sense of purpose, his body stretching easily to reach holds. All of his movements are efficient, like he’s contemplated the moves for much longer than a few seconds. 

He settles a hex in the crack, and you take up the slack in the rope. “On belay,” you confirm, not because there’s any doubt, but just to reassure Shiro that you’re taking the whole thing seriously, following all his rules. 

“Watch me through here,” he calls back down. He tests out a side-pull, then commits to the next few moves. Your palms sweat as you feed out the rope. You know that you’ll catch him. You might be pulled up, but you don’t have any doubt that you can keep him from a ground fall.

Still, it’s a relief when he places the next piece of protection into the rock. 

His grunts heat the tips of your ears as he hauls himself up the next bouldery section. The sounds he makes are suggestive. His grace should be illegal. You glance up, and almost regret it. He’s wearing form-fitting athletic shorts, and his bright violet harness just seems to highlight his wide legged stance, as he balances against a far toe-hold as he pulls himself up. 

You swallow and tell yourself that the sweat you feel starting to gather at the nape of your neck is anticipation of the climb. 

  


* * *

  


You meet Shiro at the anchor. The first pitch doesn’t give you any trouble, other than a nut that tried to jam itself deep in the crack. You’d had to hammer at it with the thin metal tool before it had come free, forcing you to pause in your climb.

Shiro looks calm and in control, draping the rope over his muscular thigh in long, neat loops as he pulls in the slack between you, making sure you’d never fall too far. You reach the little ledge and safety into the anchor beside him. 

“How was that?”

“Good.”

You share some water, carefully taken out of the backpack. 

“Did you want to keep going?”

It’s tempting to say something about commitment. But when you look at Shiro’s serious face you can’t quite bring yourself to. It’d be too direct a comparison to Adam, too much of a challenge. You’re not really sure where you stand. 

Or maybe the problem is that you know exactly where you stand. 

You nod. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

Shiro’s smile is a reward in itself. He takes back his gear from your harness, lightening your load and helps you get set up to belay. It’s easy enough to pretend that the little ledge is the ground again, that you aren’t already thirty meters up. 

  


* * *

  


It’s not until the third pitch that trouble finds you. 

You’re stymied at a blank section before the final chimney, the corner of the rock where you can stem your legs and just ease your way to the top. It’s slightly out of reach. You can see the hold you need to get to, a crack under a ledge that promises a deep pocket. But before that there’s a blank expanse, and the good hold is beyond your reach. 

That’s never stopped you before. You focus on your goal, and just go for it. It’ll just take a step up, but there’s not much to work with. Your toes slip on the smooth rock and your hands clutch at nothing on the face. You crash into the rock, then are plummeting downwards. 

You skid downwards a few meters before the rope stretches taut. The wind makes it hard to hear Shiro. Your heart races, and you shake as you reach back out for the wall, pulling yourself back against the good holds. 

“You okay?” Shiro shouts down. 

“Fine,” you say. 

Relentlessly, you haul yourself back up to the last set of good holds until you’re back to where you started. You shake out your arms before you reach out to try again.

Your fingertips catch on a slight edge, and you decide to try to trust it. You smear the toe of your shoe into a divot in the rock. It doesn’t look nearly substantial enough to hold you. 

You focus on the flake edge that was just out of reach last time, clearing your head. 

You step out, and again you’re falling. 

Shiro's taken in more of the slack, and you don’t fall as far this time. The rope jerks you to a halt. 

You sit on the rope for a moment, glaring up at the problem. ‘What would Shiro do’ isn’t going to help you here, as Shiro’s height and wingspan meant he could likely just reach the hold and transfer into the chimney’s corner, avoiding the frustratingly blank stretch. 

With a heavy sigh, you drag your body back up, irritated that you’ve had to climb this stretch three times now. You chalk up again, mostly to give yourself a bit of a chance to recover. 

Launching yourself at the problem wasn’t working. 

This time you shift out more carefully, hardly daring to breathe as you leave the security of the last good holds. For a crucial moment, you stick to the wall with little more than determination and force of will, balancing precariously as you take a few more cautious steps. Every time your hand moves you think this is it. You try to keep your weight as close to the rock as possible. 

By some miracle, your feet stick. Your hand slides into the cool shadows of the pocket, and you immediately transfer your weight to that hold. You shift your left hand over, matching it with your right. Suddenly, the divots in the wall seem incredibly solid under your toes, and you scramble up. 

If you were someone else you would have shouted with glee. Your smile of relief is your own quiet victory. You wedge your foot into a rough hole, and reach out to the other face of the rock, pushing yourself into the deep corner with a wild satisfaction. It’s easy to keep your balance between the walls, you almost don’t even need holds as you reach up to the next piece of protection that Shiro had left. You clutch the cam and wiggle it free, clipping the piece to your harness. It’s an easy climb out from here, you can see Shiro at the top of the tower, maybe eight or ten meters above your head. 

You’re practically there. 

You start to move quickly again, relieved to have the tough bit behind you. 

You shift your weight to your left as you look for another foothold. You set your weight into it and stretch upwards to get your hand as high as possible.

You hear the crack at the same time you realize that you’re in motion. Your foot is pushing against nothing. It happens too suddenly for you to swear. The handhold that had seemed so solid is less than nothing without the pressure from your foot to oppose it, and your fingers slip from the crimp. 

Shiro’s training kicks in and you breathe out when you realize you’re in free fall, bringing your hands and feet up before the arc of the rope pulls taut against your harness and you hit the wall. The momentum sends you back out, and for a moment or two you swing above nothing. 

You look up, your hard-gained ground lost. 

“What happened?” Shiro calls down. 

“I think a hold broke on me.”

When you make it back up, you can see that’s exactly what happened. There’s a pale scar where a little spur of rock had been. A bit shaken that the wall itself had broken under you, you test your handholds more carefully, shifting your weight. Your leg shakes like Elvis, despite your determination.

Your system is still saturated with adrenaline. It feels unreal, like everything is in hyperfocus as the top lip of the climb edges closer. You look up every few moves, reassuring yourself that you’re gaining ground, then go back to looking for the next foothold. 

“Nice work,” Shiro says. He’s still focused on the rope-work, a bit distracted. “Climb through and top out.”

You’re tempted to stop at the anchor anyway but haul yourself up to the top of the tower. In a bit of a daze, you take the things that Shiro passes up to you. His pack. The snaky loops of rope still tethering you together. It seems like ages before he climbs up to join you. 

You both smell like you’ve been working out for hours, but you wouldn’t trade that hug for anything. 

You’d made it. 

  


* * *

  


The rock holds the heat as the sun drops lower on the horizon, etching gold into the rock pillars around you. It’s so incredibly satisfying to look out over the valley. 

Shiro had coiled the rope, sitting on a small boulder to rummage through his pack. He hands you a Clif bar and you sit at his feet, exhausted in the best of ways. He digs through his pack again, and you look over at him. 

He smiles at you, eyes crinkling at the edges. There’s something sly in his expression, almost…

He pulls out two cans of beer from the bottom of his pack. His mischievous smile doesn’t waver as he offered one to you. “Summits should be celebrated,” he says. You stare at him, trying to reconcile the young upstanding officer with the man offering you a beer. For a moment, you’re not sure if you should trust him, if this is a test of some sort. You study his face. 

You reach out. The can’s barely cooler than the air, the remnants of the ice pack had given up sometime in the afternoon. For a moment you just stare at Shiro. He cracks his own can, never dodging your gaze.

You know that Shiro has a wilder side that he keeps hidden, safely compartmentalized from the Golden Boy persona he inhabits at the Garrison. Up until this point though, it had mostly been academic knowledge. You try to swallow your surprise, feeling like you need to live up to his casual rule-breaking. You’d never really thought your roles would invert like this. 

You lift the tab. “Thanks,” you say casually, and he tilts his can towards yours to cheers. 

“To the journey,” he says. 

“To the journey,” you echo, still feeling like the metaphorical ground is shifting underneath you. 

As the horizon embraces the ruddy sun, Shiro feels warmer and warmer. You gravitate towards him. You can smell the drying sweat on both of you, and can’t bring yourself to care. With a boldness that’s buoyed by a slight buzz from the beer and the utter relaxation of physical exhaustion, you sit too close to him, and he doesn’t comment or shift away. Your own wishes might be coloring your impression, but you think that he leans into you as well. 

  


* * *

  


Above you, the stars revealed themselves slowly in the inky darkness that stretches across the sky.

“Do you ever wish on stars?” Shiro asks. 

“No,” you say. With anyone else the simple answer would be enough for you. But there’s a pull in you, a realization that you need to give something back, rather than just closing off. “Do you?” 

“Every time I see the first one of the night..” You watch the smile on Shiro’s face with something warm crushing your chest. He’s embarrassing in his honesty. It’s typical of him. It should be cheesy, but he makes it… something else. 

Your first thought is to tease him about it. “What did you wish for?” 

“Can’t say. Won’t come true.” His eyes shine and he gives you that roguish grin again. 

“Do you wish for the same thing every time?”

“Not always.”

He shifts to look at you, making you realize that you’d been blatantly staring. Sitting this close, meeting his eyes felt intimate; too much. He is the first to look away, and you watch him stare at the glow of the Garrison on the horizon. 

You look back up, hoping to see the pale blur of the milky way develop. The cold sneaks up on you. You use it briefly as an excuse to press closer to Shiro. Your heart drops when he shifts away. Your eyes follow him as he goes to his backpack. He comes back with his lightweight hiking jacket, draping it over your shoulders. Then he’s back, sitting close, like he hadn’t left. You touch the edge of the jacket, reverently. “I don’t—” you try to protest, but it’s not the moment for that. You change your words. “Thanks.” 

“You seemed cold.” Shiro pauses, a little too long. “Should we head back?”

“A little later,” you say, hesitantly. You want to stay out there all night, but aren’t sure what the universe will take from you if you ask for that. But for now, Shiro is warm at your side, his jacket breaks the chill of the wind, and the stars are nearly all around you both. 

Shiro sees more shooting stars than you do. It may have been because your eyes keep slipping from the sky to trace his profile, instead. 

  


* * *

  


Shiro sets up the rappel when the idea of a real dinner and sleep becomes a stronger pull, long after the faint buzz of the celebratory beer had worn off.

You pack away your things, settle the backpack on your shoulders, and then head over to where Shiro is working. He looks up from where he’s perched at the ring-bolts, sitting on his safety leash as he evens out the rope. It trails off below him, into the darkness. 

He reaches up and firmly pushes you back away from the ledge. 

“Safety in first. Then come watch.” 

There’s still the monster in the depths of your guts that wants to argue with any command, that raises its hackles at the excessive precautions, but you want to be closer to Shiro, and judging by the grim, serious look on his face, now isn’t the time to argue. With exaggerated caution, you reach close to him to clip the carabiner dutifully to the bolt. Slowly let the nylon leash take your weight as you ease over the edge, sitting near Shiro again. 

The desert floor is very far away, hidden in the shadows of the night. 

The world narrows to the two circles of your head torches. You can only really see what you’re looking directly at. It spotlights the confident work Shiro’s hands are doing, lets you imagine the ground isn’t quite so far away. 

“Alright,” Shiro says after what feels like ages. “Just like we practiced.” He hands you one side of the rope. It’s heavy, gravity dragging it back down as you lift some slack to your waist. 

You nod and feed the rope through your belay device before locking it into place. You tie off the prussic beneath the gri-gri, winding the safety around the rope, making sure that it’ll catch if for any reason your belay device slips on the rappel. You glance up, reassured by Shiro’s serious nod at each step as he follows your hands. 

Shiro sets up his own gear, and looks over the anchor a final time. “Ready?” he asks, and you’re blinded as he looks at your face rather than your gear, his light directly in your face. 

You grunt and shut your eyes, keeping your hands on your rope. Shiro laughs and quickly looks away, mumbling a half-hearted apology. 

Out of the corner of your eye you could see his grin at the edges of your own circle of light. 

You reach out to unclip your safety leash, reattaching the carabiner to your harness. Shiro echoes the movement, and at once, the anchor is the only thing holding you to the rock. It holds, and Shiro breathes out. 

“I knotted the ends before I threw the rope,” he says. “Even so. Watch for the end. The next rappel station should be about five meters it. Be careful.”

You nod. “Right.”

“Here goes nothing,” You lean back and thumb at the lever on your belay device, freeing the catch and letting the rope start to slip through. Your headtorch narrowed the view to your feet and the rock. You bounce off the vertical surface, as if moving in low gravity. 

You’d imagined Shiro rappelling beside you; racing or something. Gravity didn’t work that way though, and instead of remaining at your side, Shiro was nearly on top of you. He bracketed you into the corner of the rock, legs spread outside your own. Dangerously close to your back. 

You shadow each other down the entire way like that, laughing because it’s completely ridiculous. 

You’re glad of Shiro’s experience when he smoothly switches you over at the next rappel station. The ledge there helps, giving you easy footing as you safety into the rings. You hold your breath as he threads the rope through the rings, carefully reknotting the ends before throwing it, repeating the process to get you down the Pulpit. The return to the earth was much quicker than the struggle up.

At the end of the last rap, you let yourself dangle just above the ground for a moment, not wanting your feet to touch the floor. Not wanting the adventure to end. Shiro doesn’t share your sentiment, and you get dropped unceremoniously to your butt when Shiro takes his weight off the other side of the rope. 

Your cheeks hurt from smiling. 

  


* * *

  


You’re full, exhausted, and so, so exhilarated from the successes of the day. Clean socks and pajamas feel decadent, and the worst of the grime has been chased away by wet wipes; little bird baths outside the tent. 

You’d heated up the food while Shiro had done his physio, the bracelets whirring as his muscles tensed and released. You kept yourself from staring at his arms, following his lead in ignoring them and what they meant. 

Neither of you has the energy to stay up, your sleeping bags and mats are drawing you in. It’s funny how luxurious it is to stretch out in them. 

Shiro collapses on his side of the tent with a satisfied groan. “That was good.”

You nod, tying your hair back from your face before you pull your sleeping bag up around you. 

You turn to him. The mattress sinks under your shoulder and hip. He hears you move, and turns his head. 

It’s intimate. 

The space between you seems sacred, untouchable, even as you curl towards him.

“Shiro…”

If there’s ever a time to tell him, it’s now. 

You can’t really make out his expression. You match your breathing to his, the only intimacy you dare. 

“Yeah?” he asks gently, when your words shimmer inside the cocoon you’ve kept them in. He sounds so relaxed. It’s such a contrast to the tension that burns in you. You wonder if you can do it. If you could say it. Everything matters so much because it’s Shiro. You’ve never hesitated like this over anything else. Ever. 

And still. It’s a step too far, just out of reach. If you did tell him what you were feeling, would your friendship drop out from underneath you? Since you’d met him, Shiro had always been the one to catch you, literally or figuratively. If you messed this up…

You roll onto your back, unable to face him. He’s still so close, patiently waiting for you to find your words. He’s always been good about that. 

“Thanks for today.”

You hear the breath of huffed air, a snort rather than a laugh, but you can picture the half smile that he would be making. 

“It’s nice to be out here,” Shiro says. You hear him yawn. “I’m glad to get away from it all.”

You stare at the tent fabric above you and tell yourself that friendship is more important than a crush. With friendship, you don’t think you’re adding to Shiro’s stress. You can be there for him. 

Out there, in the solace of the familiar desert, far away from everyday life, in the privacy of your own mind, you tested out a new concept.

You loved Shiro. It was a heavy thought, the word itself too full of expectations, of meanings assigned by other people. But your heart has made a choice. And you’d be there for him, no matter what. No matter what direction his own heart pulled him in. 

  


* * *

  


Sunday disappears in a morning of sport routes and projects, shorter harder routes that challenge both of you.You climb on the bike behind Shiro, the sense of loss creeping in even before the drive back through Platt city, where you stop for burgers and fries at a greasy little diner. For a few heartbeats it feels like a date, and then Shiro ruins your daydreams by circling the topics back to your classes. At another time, you might have decided that it was a relief to slip back into familiar territory. You understood Shiro as a mentor and it was always inspiring to listen to him talk about what he loved. Less amusing when he was quizzing you about the basics. 

  


* * *

  


Shiro makes a detour on the way back, during lunch he’d remembered a book that would be helpful in one of your classes, but he’d left it with Matt last semester. The Holt family home was on the outskirts of Platt city, an easy drive from the Garrison and as you pull up you see a low bungalow with a startlingly green lawn.

You hang back in the doorway, even as Shiro gestures you in. He doesn’t seem shocked to find the door unlocked. There’s a living room to the side, where you can see someone intent on a fast-paced first person shooter. Shiro kicks off his shoes. “Hey Matt, you still have that Physics 300 workbook I lent you last year?”

“Uh huh. On my shelf.” Matt doesn’t look up from his game. Shiro heads off to the back hallway, disappearing into the Holt’s house. He’s effortlessly at home there. You watch him go, feeling out of place with this return to civilization, like you’re an intruder. 

Matt’s game going, his fingers flying over the controller. After a few moments of silence, he asks, “Get your hands all over Shiro’s rack?”

You freeze. “Uh.” You can’t tell if you flush or go white, but your skin feels icy and hot and your palms are suddenly damp.

“Wiggle your fingers into some tight cracks?”

“Matt—” you hear Shiro threaten from the other room. His voice holds a warning. 

“I’d rather go for jugs,” Matt says, with a devilish grin. “But I know some people just can’t wait to work with nuts.” 

You don’t know how to respond to any of it. You’re frozen by the door. You know they’re just climbing terms. You know that, and still you feel like your secrets are splayed out and exposed by the teasing. 

Shiro returns to the room and covers Matt’s eyes. Matt yelps and starts to struggle, anxious to not lose the level on whatever game he’s playing. “Watch yourself,” Shiro says, in a too-sweet tone. “I made sure to give him a nut-removal tool.”

“Kinky.”

Shiro pushes Matt over onto his side, and heads back over to you, handing you a worn workbook that had been tucked under his arm. “That’s the one.” He ushers you outside before Matt can get another word in, calling back for him to say hi to the family. “The problems at the end of each chapter are the same sort of ones that’ll be on the final.”

“Thanks,” you manage to say, tucking the book in with your packs. You try to remember when you mentioned you were worried about that class. Shiro often remembers things you say and don’t think about any further. 

Your heartbeat is still too rapid, thrumming in your throat like hummingbird wings. 

“He didn’t mean anything by it.” Shiro says to you, gently, and you know that your expression makes your thoughts painfully obvious. Shiro must know. He always sees to see through to your other intentions. And if he knew… he’d made his own position clear with the way that he avoided mentioning anything.“He uses the same jokes every time.” It feels like Shiro is still trying to soothe your feelings. 

“Right.” You slide your goggles on, not meeting his eyes. You’re ready to get out of her. The lingering humiliation burns. 

You’re grateful when the hoverbike fans kick in and drown out any other attempts at conversation. You keep a careful distance between Shiro and yourself. 

Your concentration on that doesn’t last too long. Before too long, you’re staring out at the desert, and resting against Shiro’s back. 

Old habits and all. 

  


* * *

  


Shiro parks at your dorm. You hop off the bike, feeling the ache in your muscles as you hit the warm asphalt. The building suddenly feels imposing, a clear sign that the weekend is over. There’s a sense that your time has run out. You’re not ready to return to reality, but you can’t think of any other way you can delay it. You throw your pack over your shoulder and look at Shiro. There’s so much you want to say. 

His mind is elsewhere, that easy playfulness disappearing too fast now that you’re back within sight of the Garrison. Even though he’s right next to you, there’s more distance between you somehow. 

“Shiro… you know that I’m here for you.” The words feel thick in your mouth. You mean so much with them. 

Shiro gives you a half smile. “Isn’t that my line?” he asks. 

“Can’t it be mine, too?”

Shiro’s smile widens and his gaze softens. He moves to ruffle your hair and you step back, dodging out of the way with irritation. 

He walks you to the door of the dorm building. 

“If you ever…” you start to stay. You think of the hold breaking underneath your foot, the sudden fall, the expanse of emptiness underneath you. The words stall in your mouth. It’s not the place, not the time. You can’t finish the thought.

He doesn’t seem to mind. He leans into you, nudging you with his weight, making you stagger a step when your pack pulls you off-balance. It breaks the silence, but the moment is precarious, and in this situation, your boldness is easily shaken. 

“I know,” he says softly. 

He heads back to the bike, and you watch him stand there a moment before he mounts back up, waving like he always does. 

It’s that pause that speaks to you, that makes you wonder just what is held in those words. If Shiro _really_ knows just how deep your devotion to him runs.

  


* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/HerPaintstrokes) occasionally sharing in-progress writing snippets and retweeting pretty things.


End file.
